Subscribe to our newsletter When Marc Edwards joined Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. as chief executive in 2014, he already knew how dependent offshore drilling rigs were on blowout preventers — valve assemblies designed to prevent oil spills. But he was surprised when he found out how costly it was when those blowout preventers were out of service. Now, thanks to an innovative service model involving Diamond and GE Oil & Gas, oil companies have a way to save millions of dollars from downtime and repairs. The deal, which could become a blueprint for the rest of the industry, focuses on optimizing blowout preventer performance by adding cloud-based analytics running on GE’s Predix digital platfom to heavy-duty subsea engineering. The solution is an example of how GE is partnering with customers…